


TBD: Fallout 4 Headcanon

by FeelingSasquatchy



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Flash Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 01:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12924312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelingSasquatchy/pseuds/FeelingSasquatchy
Summary: A collection of my own little headcanon for Fallout 4





	1. Plume

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley spends her first night in Sanctuary after exiting Vault 111

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was written for a course with an audience that was unfamiliar with the game. It may include some context clues those familiar with the game don't necessarily need.

Riley was not a bit surprised when she couldn’t fall asleep that night. Finding out you had been cryogenically frozen for over 200 years and were now faced with living in a world you knew nothing about was enough to keep anyone awake. Add to that the fact she was lying in the dilapidated remains of the house she had shared with her new-and-now-dead husband, and she started to question if she would ever sleep again.

The day the bombs fell, she and Becan had been excitedly preparing for their first Halloween as a married couple. They had been spreading fake spider webs around the guest room when Codsworth, their Mr. Handy utility robot who was practically a member of the family, had rushed in exclaiming they needed to see the news. Within minutes chaos erupted in their small neighborhood and they joined the stream of people making their way to the nearby Vault-Tec emergency shelter. As the plume of a nearby nuclear explosion filled the sky, they sank down into their new safe haven.

Shock did not have time to subside into suspicion before the lucky few who made it inside were ushered into cryogenic sleep pods masquerading as decontamination units. Riley could still recall Becan’s bright green eyes and reassuring smile as he sat enclosed in the pod across from her, surrounded by silence, cold overtaking them until there was nothingness.

She awoke to new confusion – her body was stiff and breathing labored, alarms blared, lights flashed. Her frantic hands fumbled to open Becan’s pod, revealing his frozen, lifeless form. The frost covering the remaining pods answered the question she didn’t dare ask – something terrible had happened here. She was the sole survivor.

Riley crumpled.

After some time, she wasn’t sure how long, she found her way back to the surface, to her neighborhood, to her home. It was like entering a new world; one of turmoil and destruction.

To her astonishment, Codsworth had survived, and he greeted her with enthusiasm. She sat on what remained of her front porch while he attempted to explain what had happened: October 23, 2077, the day she and Becan had entered the vault, was the day of the Great War. Two hours of global nuclear attacks had left most of the earth barren, and in the 210 years since then, most of the Boston commonwealth had transformed into a dangerous, radioactive wasteland. Nobody had been to the cul-de-sac in years.

Riley tried to pay attention as Codsworth rambled on, but, finding it too much to comprehend, found herself fixated on a particularly deep crack in the sidewalk. When night had fallen, he had insisted she go inside and rest, that she ‘must be so happy to finally be home,’ and she couldn’t bring herself to tell him no.

Hours went by with nothing but the quiet hum of motors breaking the silence every 30 minutes or so as Codsworth patrolled the empty neighborhood. Eventually the quiet became overwhelming and Riley could not stand being still nor in that place any longer. She listened for Codsworth’s next pass then crept out through the back door to wander in the opposite direction.

Her feet moved aimlessly, finding a path behind the broken homes that belonged to long-gone neighbors. After a short time she found herself standing at the old bridge that led away toward Concord. It was not safe to leave, not at that time of night, with the threat of unknown dangers she was in no way prepared to face. Feeling equally unprepared to face her past again, and unsure of where else she would go, she settled for lying on the grass behind the large Sanctuary Hills sign. The irony of her home’s name was not lost on her.

Flat on her back, arms and legs spread haphazardly, her eyes traced the sky. As her mind quieted, she started to notice just how many stars she could see. There had never been this many visible before, and, among the waste and uncertainty around her, they were beautiful.

And the words were suddenly on her lips, “Look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow…”

She softly sang to herself until the weight of the day pulled her into unconsciousness.

_Lyrics by Coldplay – “Yellow”_


	2. Wine and Cheese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jun and Marcy share breakfast a year after arriving at Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was written for a course with an audience that was unfamiliar with the game. It may include some context clues those familiar with the game don't necessarily need.

Jun always preferred starting the day early. He was often the first awake in Sanctuary Hills, quietly navigating the settlement’s makeshift kitchen in the early twilight. This place felt so comfortable now, like a real home. Was it really only a year ago he and Marcy had journeyed here, still fresh with grief at the loss of their son and unsure of their own longevity?

They had lived in Quincy for quite some time before the attack that drove them away. Life had never been easy, but nothing had prepared them for what was coming. An organized group of ruffians calling themselves the Gunners targeted their city, and it was devastating. The attack would later become known as the Quincy Massacre of 2287, as so few had made it out of the city alive. Their son, Kyle, was among those lost. They hadn’t even been able to go back and recover his body.

So much had changed since then that Jun had never thought possible: he was enjoying a calm morning, squeezing fresh mutfruit juice into two clean glasses, for goodness sake! Sure, he still kept a pistol strapped to his hip, but he no longer actively feared the need to use it. And Marcy, his Marcy, was slowly coming back to him. Her snide remarks were fewer, her overall manner calmer, and she was finally allowing herself restful sleep; she had even curled up to him last night, allowing his embrace to be the only protection she required.

At that happy recollection, the woman herself entered the room, groggy but smiling. Their mornings together were one thing that had never changed, for which he was grateful.

“Whatcha got for us today?” Marcy asked, hugging Jun from behind to peek over his shoulder.

“Toast with cheese and mutfruit juice,” he smiled, wiping his hands on a nearby dish rag and motioning toward the glasses of deep purple liquid. “One of the settlers has a new way of making cheese so it’s spreadable.”

Marcy’s nose wrinkled in silent apprehension, but she didn’t denounce the idea and instead helped Jun set the table. After a few bites, they both deemed the cheese a delightful addition to their toast, and Marcy was scampering off, eyes wide with some sudden realization. Moments later she returned with a bottle of wine slung under her arm. “Ya always hear about ‘wine and cheese’,” she offered.

“We’re not _supposed_ to just take that,” Jun said quietly, glancing around.

“I’m sure I’m not the first person,” Marcy chided playfully, sitting back down and pouring a bit into each of their glasses, where it swirled with the remaining juice.

She was probably right, but there was no reason to let her go that easy. “Oh, no, you are, actually,” he grinned.

She laughed lightly, scooching her chair so they both faced the cool September sun as it broke the horizon.

“I love you, Jun.”

“I love you too, Marcy.”


	3. The Hardest Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conflicted soul faces a life-altering decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was written for a course with an audience that was unfamiliar with the game. It may include some context clues those familiar with the game don't necessarily need.

He left the small farm in the dead of night, not wanting to burden the kind family that had offered him a room with any more than he must. Should he be traced to their home, he will be nothing more than another nameless drifter, there one night and gone by morning. It would not take long for the Institute to figure out he had faked his death, and he did not like the idea of innocents suffering when the Coursers, the Institute’s most advanced and dangerous androids, were set the task of finding him.

Under cover of darkness he made his way to a nearby, pre-war town, long abandoned. As he traveled he could feel the stress on his body from increased radiation levels and knew he could not go much farther without…without…

He had thought escaping would have been the hardest part, not this.

He holed up in a nearby building, pulled the applicator from his pack, and held it flat in his right palm, considering it carefully. Inside was a serum containing the Forced Evolutionary Virus, which was responsible for the mutated human brutes commonly referred to as Super Mutants. His only true chance to escape the Institute was to disappear into the Glowing Sea, and if he wanted to survive its tremendously high radiation levels, inflicting this virus on himself was the only option.

He had already waited longer than he originally wanted to, but every time he looked at the serum, his stomach tied itself in knots. There would be no turning back; though he had been working on an antidote for this particular strain, he did not bring it with him, and knew no others existed. Even if he had, or had a way to get it, there was still no guarantee it would work. It was experimental, after all.

But just as his force of will began to falter, the faces surfaced. The frightened, tortured faces. The unwilling victims of a misguided scientist. He had been told it was for the betterment of humankind, for the health of the commonwealth, for the prestige among his colleagues. But, their faces; he could not escape them. And he could not – would not – allow himself to be made part of those horrible Institute experiments again.

The Institute: boogeyman of the commonwealth. The technology that had been available to him was endless, any scientist’s dream. But the means to carry out the experiments, kidnapping and forced participation…there came a point when he could no longer rationalize their actions. But his work was important, and there was no question that the Institute would want it to continue, and want his own knowledge returned or exterminated.

With newfound resolve, and a sharp intake of breath, Virgil’s shaking fingers clenched around the applicator, jamming it into his thigh. There was instantaneous warmth, starting at the injection site and quickly spreading through his body. His muscles tightened and twitched, his pulse quickened, and it was all he could do not to cry out in pain.

He was lost to the throes of the serum.

Some time later he regained consciousness. He was flat on his back. Everything hurt. It took him a moment to remember what he had done. He shifted his focus to his right hand, which was balled into a swollen, green fist. It had worked; he had mutated. He relaxed his fingers and the applicator rolled to the floor with a hollow _thunk_.

Ignoring the stiffness in his joints and the awkwardness of his new physique, Virgil clambered to his feet, clumsily gathered his belongings, and lumbered west, where the billowing clouds of the Glowing Sea would envelop him like a blanket and swallow him whole.


End file.
